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Classic film A real treat
Rom-Com at it's best! |
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Notting Hill with
Julia Roberts, Hugh Grant, Richard McCabe, Rhys Ifans, James
Dreyfus |
They don't really make many romantic comedies
like Notting Hill anymore--blissfully romantic, sincerely sweet, and not
grounded in any reality whatsoever. Pure fairy tale, and with a huge
debt to Roman Holiday, Notting Hill ponders what would happen if a
beautiful, world-famous person were to suddenly drop into your life
unannounced and promptly fall in love with you. That's the crux of the
situation for William Thacker (Hugh Grant), who owns a travel bookshop
in London's fashionable Notting Hill district. Hopelessly ordinary
(well, as ordinary as you can be when you're Hugh Grant), William is
going about his life when renowned movie star Anna Scott (Julia Roberts)
walks into his bookstore and into his heart. After another contrived
meeting involving spilled orange juice, William and Anna share a
spontaneous kiss (big suspension of disbelief required here), and soon
both are smitten. The question is, of course, can William and Anna
reconcile his decidedly commonplace bookseller existence and her
lifestyle as a jet-setting, paparazzi-stalked celebrity? (Take a wild
guess at the answer.) Smartly scripted by Richard Curtis (Four Weddings
and a Funeral) and directed by Roger Michell (Persuasion), Notting Hill
is hardly realistic, but as wish fulfilment and a romantic comedy, it's
irresistible. True, Roberts doesn't really have to stretch very far to
play a big-time actress who makes $15 million per movie, but she's more
winning and relaxed than she's been in years, and Grant is sweetly
understated as a man blindsided by love. Together, in moments of quiet,
they're a charming couple, and you can feel her craving for real love
and his awe and amazement at the wonderful person for whom he has
fallen. The only blight on the film is its overbearing pop soundtrack,
though Elvis Costello's heart-wrenching version of "She" gets poignant
exposure. With Rhys Ifans as Grant's scene-stealing, slovenly housemate
and Alec Baldwin in a sly, perfectly cast cameo.
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